[efh] Web design notes: Flash abuse

[Drake Wilson]

I was mostly biting my tongue during the Web part of today's class,
torn between feeling sick that the technology underlying the Web is
being abused as much as it is, feeling sick that the technology is
limited enough to force people to abuse it if they want to do anything
fancy with it, and feeling sick at the social dynamic forces
underlying the general inability to transition to anything better.

But after consulting a few other people and thinking it over, perhaps
it would be better to say something, at least in some cases.

Here's one major point that I couldn't restrain myself from almost
bringing up, but that I couldn't quite sustain: the abuse of Flash.
This is a case of ungraceful degradation that I find particularly
frightening.

Adobe Flash (formerly Shockwave Flash) lets you do various graphical
effects, and add client-side scripted interactivity up to and
including the point of full thick-client-style applications downloaded
over the Web.  This is not necessarily a bad thing; in fact, it can
be a good thing.

The problem is that Flash is a proprietary format.  Last I checked,
there are specifications for the Flash file format on the Web, but the
license agreement to which you must click "I Agree" before being able
to view the document _specifically_ states that you are _not_ allowed
to use it to create players for Flash files, only generators.

What this means is that if I want to view a Flash file on the Web, I
either have to rely on people reverse-engineering the file format, or
I have to run Adobe's Flash Player code on the viewing machine.
Expecting people to do the latter is not really acceptable, in my
eyes.  The Internet is global and accessed by many people.  Suppose I
don't trust Adobe's Flash Player code?  Suppose I don't agree to their
license agreement?  Suppose, ideological differences entirely aside,
their code just won't _work_ on my machine?

There was one site today that, as far as I could tell from seeing the
View Source window, was entirely done in Flash.  There was no
fallback, no alternative means of viewing it.  I run Debian GNU/Linux
amd64 on my main box.  Since the site simply will not operate without
a reader for this proprietary file format, I can't effectively view
the site.  (Progress has been made on reverse-engineering, but the
fact that this is even necessary... well, you know the drill.)

This is in distinct contrast to actual Web standards.  XHTML 1.0, HTML
4.01, CSS levels 1, 2.1, and 3, XML formatting objects, XSLT,
ECMAScript, the DOM levels 1, 2, and 3... these are open standards.
You can get specifications for them, and you're allowed to use the
specifications to implement them.  If, for some reason, there simply
does not exist a program that will function on my target machine that
I am willing to use to view XHTML pages, I can use the specification
to write one.  If I don't know how to write one, I might be able to
get someone else to write one, possibly by hiring them for that
purpose.  There can still be resource constraints, but that's
unavoidable.

With Flash, Adobe tries to make this impossible /ab origine/.

It's always important to make sure your site degrades reasonably, to
the extent that it could reasonably be expected to.  Some sites may
require scripting as part of their fundamental nature, for instance.
Some may even require Flash.  But a page that shows some text and
images and links to other pages should require nothing beyond a basic
HTML parser and renderer on the client side.  It's even marginally
okay to use full-page Flash, so long as you include a "text only" link
or similar that degrades gracefully enough that people with simpler
clients can still see the content.  Web standards are _designed_ to
degrade gracefully in most cases, assuming you use them properly;
Flash isn't, so you have to provide the graceful degradation yourself.
If you don't, you're doing anyone who views your site a disservice.

(Before you ask, the solution of "well, then upgrade your browser" is
_not_ a solution, especially in the case of proprietary file formats.
With open standards, there's already enough complexity barriers that
you still can't really get away with that.  With proprietary formats
it's possible to encounter barriers that are impossible to legally
surmount.)

And isn't it part of the hacker ethic to provide free-as-in-freedom
access to information content, too?  This _is_ /Extreme Freestyle
Hacking/, after all.

The Internet is for everyone.

Let's keep it that way.

   ---> Drake Wilson
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